


beyond this place of wrath and tears

by fatsuffices (wrenchwench)



Category: Realm of the Elderlings - Robin Hobb
Genre: AU where they LIVE and i don't CRY, Other, dont judge me i have SO MANY ideas for fix it fics just LET me be HAPPY, sorry robin hobb!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-18 20:34:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11882313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrenchwench/pseuds/fatsuffices
Summary: The old woman takes my face in her hands. I realise I am as tall as she is, if not taller, but she still seems to me to be vast, bigger than any person has a right to be. She looks at me, then kisses my forehead. It burns.“Vicious child,” she says, “little wolf. You are one of mine. A gift, then.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> yes, once again its me, hello...
> 
> as with all of my ROTE fic this is named with a quote from a POEM which is RELEVANT to the fic in some way, google it and u will see. its like a secret. a secret which i am telling you right now.

**A big set of scales, like the money-changer at Oaksbywater has. On one pan a bee alights, and the pan is suddenly weighed all the way down. A very old woman, her face impassive, asks, ‘What is the value of this life? What is a fair measure to buy it?’ A blue buck comes charging across the market. It leaps and lands in the empty pan. The bee’s pan rises and they balance exactly. The very old woman nods and smiles. Her teeth are red and pointed.***

_The old woman takes my face in her hands. I realise I am as tall as she is, if not taller, but she still seems to me to be vast, bigger than any person has a right to be. She looks at me, then kisses my forehead. It burns._

_“Vicious child,” she says, “little wolf. You are one of mine. A gift, then.”_

_The old woman reaches out and breaks off one of the prongs of the buck’s antlers. She swings it and it gashes the face of the buck, then stabs its thigh. The leg she stabs withers and falls off, crumbling into dust._

_She plants the horn in the ground like a sapling. It grows up and smashes the scales. Pieces scatter all over._

_The buck falls to the ground, crumpled. I cannot tell if it is breathing, but I also cannot tell if it is dead. Around it, flowers sprout. The bee flits from blossom to blossom. It alights at last on a dandelion which is in full bloom, but instead of white, the little seed-fluffs are made of gold. A pair of little golden seeds break off from the head of the flower and float off into the blue sky._

_Then the dream ends._  
  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   - From Bee Farseer’s dream journal

 

Of the journey out of the tunnels beneath Clerres, I remember Beloved, gasping and sobbing, cradling me. The feeling of my dangling legs looped over his arm, and my head against his chest, his beating heart. Then the shock of cold water as I struggled to be put down, for him to stop touching me, the bright futures of the world sliding out from our contact skin-to-skin, unbearable.

He told me my father was dead. That, I remember clearly, and too well I remember rejecting it. I struck at him blindly then, catching his face hard, and he took it without flinching. I felt almost as though I regretted it, and then hated myself for feeling sorry for him. We walked through the water, at first chest high on me, but lowering all the time, and he tugged at me to keep me upright with his hand wrapped in his shirt-sleeve. Then there was a light, and Per, who had come back, against the pleading of the others.

“There was a voice in my head.. I felt I had to,” he explained, taking my hand. I remember following him, and it wasn’t for several minutes that either of us realised that we were alone in the corridor.

When we turned back, Beloved was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

I lay there and spoke with the wolf. The water was warming around me all the time and I wondered if I would stew alive instead of drowning. Would the magic that powered the fire-brick run out?

 _One death is much the same as another,_ observed Nighteyes.

“True,” I said, “but perhaps dying of heat would be better than freezing to death.”

“I’m not sure about that,” said a voice, and I jerked, my whole body spasming.

“Fool!”

“Yes,” he replied, and there was a splashing noise, and the sensation of the rubble on my body shifting.

“You left Bee alone?” I demanded, horrified, “You left her there in the dark-”

He slapped water at my face, hitting me in the mouth and nose, and I spluttered, choking.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Fitz. You ought to know better by now.”

He sounded almost breezy, as if there was nothing to worry about. I wished I could at least see his face. I wanted to know if he was crying. He sounded like he had been; his words were thick, as if he couldn’t breathe through his nose. It was that, or someone had punched him.

_Perhaps they did. He can be frustrating. But he frustrated you often, and you never hit him._

_No,_ I said to the wolf, _but that does not mean someone else would not._

“Then,” I said, spitting, and wishing for water for the hundredth time, “then what are you doing here? Are you not going to take care of her?”

“She can take care of herself, Fitz. As she has handily proven. Moreover, she has many people now who will look after her - including Per, who would gladly lay down his life for hers, as I’m sure you noticed.”

More splashing, and shooting pain. I keened as the rock above me moved in such a way as to put even more pressure on my left leg. The Fool gave a little gasp and the rubble on me ground ominously, then began to tumble from its place.

“Stop,” I cried out, then screamed as the pressure increased to beyond what I could bear. Something had torn, or broken, and I felt a warmth between my thighs as my bladder could not hold up against the pain. I sobbed until I passed out.

Eventually I became aware of a cool touch on my face. The Fool’s hands cradled my cheeks and his thumbs rubbed over my cheekbones again and again. It was equally soothing for both of us, I think. He was breathing very loudly, and every so often he made a little choking noise as he fought tears. “Fitz?” he said wetly. “Your eyes are open.”

“Are they?” I said, “I hadn’t noticed. It’s dark in here.”

“It is,” he agreed haltingly, and moved away from me once more. “Your legs are nearly free, I moved most of it while you were unconscious. But- oh, Fitz. I’m so sorry.”

I closed my eyes again. I did not want to hear it.

“Your left leg-”

“I know,” I said. I did know. The wolf had told me. He was always more willing to acknowledge the truth than I. “I know. It’s gone.”

The next half an hour or so was easier for me. I think perhaps the part of my mind that felt pain had simply gone away for a time, or perhaps I was feeling so much that I simply could not comprehend what I was experiencing. The Fool was still intermittently crying, but the rubble was clearing slowly. Eventually, there was none left. There was silence. Neither of us knew quite what would happen now.

He came back to my head, and crouched. For a moment, he simply hunkered down next to me and balanced with his hand on my chest, feeling me breathe. Then, he remarked, “The water is very warm.”

“It’s the brick,” I said, jerking my head towards where I remembered my pack to be. He left me to fetch it, and I heard him The top flap had come undone and I could tell from the temperature of the bag that the brick had tumbled out. “It’s not here,” I said, and he seemed to take it as a request, moving away again to seek it out. For my part, I rifled through the pack in hope of a waterskin.

Simultaneously we both let out yells of pain and drew back our hands. His hand, scalded by the brick; mine, fingers sliced open from slivers of glass in the pack. I flinched as I felt something splatter against my right eye, and then gasped as the silver sank into my pupil and the cuts on my fingers, spreading across my palm, dripping down my cheek.

It was indescribable. The sensation was too much for me to take, but not in the way that losing my leg had been. The Fool had stumbled away from me, and seemed too afraid to come closer as I writhed in ecstasy. It felt like hours as it sank into me, and also no time at all.

Eventually, he spoke.

“Fitz. Can you see me?”

I could, and told him so.

“Can you - can you heal your leg?”

I tried. The stump folded together nicely, but no matter how I tried I could not get the leg to fix itself together again. It was as though I was trying to force two pieces of a puzzle together that were not meant to go. After a minute or so, the wolf nudged at me.

_It’s not yours any more. Leave it. You don’t need it._

Lightheaded, I dropped it. The Fool had crept closer and was gingerly holding the bag, from which silver dripped.

“Do you.. want more?” he asked, uncertainly. “Your hand, and your face.. There’s not much there, but I think-”

“It’s enough,” I said, “here, give it to me.”

He handed over the pack and I ran my silvered hand over the bottom of it, then the sides, then the top, persuading the seams to tighten, the leather to harden, the water to dry. _I want the silver to be be contained herein until we need it,_ I thought, and after some time found that in my hands I held a strange leathery orb, like a huge egg. I held it up and it rocked strangely in my hands, sloshing.

“Perhaps it will hatch,” said the Fool wryly. “Shall we?”

I looked up at him. He was offering me his arm. I suddenly remembered all the times I had done the same to Molly when her back was getting bad, all those years ago when she had been pregnant with Bee. I swallowed.

“Let’s,” I said, just as she would have, and let him help me up.


	3. Chapter 3

The journey home from Clerres was intolerable. I felt intermittently alone and not alone enough. I often sought solitude by tucking myself away in inaccessible corners. I had not lost the knack for finding places others overlooked. Per often found me, however, and his was the company I liked best. He never tried to fuss over me or make me talk. Often he would simply sit and do work nearby me as I stared off into space and thought of my father. Nevertheless, even he found me strange.

“Sometimes I feel as though he is calling to me,” I said to him once, and when he seemed to be distressed at the thought I might harm myself in order to reach my father, I had to take back my words, soften them as though I meant only in dreams or as a fantasy. But I was certain, and moreso by the day, that my father was not dead.

This, of course, was an impossibility. I put it out of my mind as often as I could.

Per took it on himself to make me busy for the rest of the journey and I did my best.

It was all I could do.


	4. Chapter 4

As the Fool and Prilkop talked quietly with each other, I let myself lie in the sun and felt the flowers beneath my hands. One hand felt only grass and blossom. The other felt every drop of nectar, every speck of pollen. I pushed at it, dizzy, curious, and felt a bud beneath my palm open, petals spiralling apart at my request.

Footsteps nearby alerted me to the return of my friend.

“He says Capra is still alive,” he said, and handed me a sack of food, which I dug into immediately, starving. He took an apricot for himself and shoved at me gently when I tried to give him more. We ate in silence, and when it was done, I looked at him, and he looked back at me. We did not speak.

He knew that I would not allow Capra to live.

Days later, after I had dealt with the last remaining member of the Four, we limped our way down a dirt track. He began to hum, very quietly. It was a song I vaguely recognised, more from his voice than the tune.

“You’ve sung that before,” I said, trying to do my best to take my own weight. My left leg, gone from the knee, hung weirdly from my body.

“I have,” he said, grunting as I inadvertently bumped him with my hip, “although I’m surprised you remember it, as you were insensate at the time. After we got your memories back from Girl-On-A-Dragon, I sang it to you.”

“It’s nice,” I said, for lack of anything better to say. He ducked his head, and his hair covered his face, but I think he was smiling.

The days seemed to blend a little. Motley came and went. We ate when we could. Once, he left me curled beneath a tree, to go and look for water. When he came back, I informed him that Nighteyes had made me aware that I was infected with worms. I had meant it only as a piece of information, but he dropped all the kindling he carried and ran to me to inspect the puncture wound I’d scratched at.

“Oh, Fitz,” he sighed, and I felt his hand shake as he brushed it against the nape of my neck, “I can’t let you fade like this. Not like this. Not for you.”

He sat back, and tugged the sleeve-wrap away from his hand, and displayed his silvered fingers to me. “Once more?” he said dryly. “For old time’s sake.”

“We can only save each other from certain death so many times,” I said, and bowed my head, “but if you feel you can rid me of them, go ahead. I remember the girl with the butterfly cloak who came to me. I know what happens if they are left too long.”

“Yes,” he said darkly, “as do I.”

And then he placed a fingertip directly on the puncture wound and fire engulfed my body - not painful, not pleasurable, but infinitely both. He hissed through gritted teeth and pressed me against the tree hard with his other hand. I realised distantly that I was convulsing.

It was only about twenty minutes, all told. The sun had barely moved from start to finish, but we both lay there and panted like we’d run a race. Then he took me by the armpits and dragged me away from where we’d been, and I saw where, against the tree, a spatter of blood and tiny writhing worms had landed.

The next day, he refused to help me up, telling me to rest, and he left me alone for a few hours with only the wolf in my head for company. After some time, Motley came and scolded me over and over, telling me to go home, and eventually I had to shout at her that my leg was gone, and I could not go by myself. After that, it was suddenly very apparent to me that I would never be the same as I had been. Even throughout all my life, with all that had happened to me, I had never lost a limb. I lay and stared up at the leaves of the trees and let myself cry.

An hour or so after that, the Fool returned, and I was shocked to see that he had not only found a sturdy branch, nearly as tall as I was and with a good forked shape, for me to use as a crutch; but he had also started work on some kind of peg leg. “I cannot fit it to you until I have something to tie it to you with,” he said apologetically, fidgeting with it, “but I know that it cannot put you in good spirits, to have to lean on me like this.”

“I don’t mind,” I said, as much to make him happy as it was the truth - I hadn’t realised how little I resented relying on him. If it had been anyone else I would have hated it. I told him so, and his smile then was blinding.

We made good time to Kelsingra, after that.


	5. Chapter 5

I was with Thick the night the bird came. The music we were skilling to each other was interrupted by the sound of people running in the corridor outside, and I found it hard to concentrate for a moment before I realised that they were calling my name.

“I must go,” I told my companion regretfully, and with one last pet of the cat, I made my way to find the servants searching for me. “Sorry,” I said to the first rumpled-looking serving girl I bumped into, “I wasn’t able to sleep and went for a walk. Am I needed?”

She nodded hurriedly and chivvied me into a warm dressing gown she was carrying. “The Queen says you must come at once. You are the last one we were to find. Quickly now.”

I was hurried through the corridors and up the stairs to the Queen’s rooms. She entered with me and curtseyed low. I gazed around at a roomful of people as bewildered as I was - except the Queen, who looked strangely anticipatory. She dismissed the serving-girl and we were alone - all of us who had been on the journey to Clerres, and the others who knew the truth about that time. Even Hap was there, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Now that Bee is here, I can tell you why I gathered you, and so suddenly. This just arrived from Kelsingra.”

She brandished a scroll that looked rather battered, and looked right at me, and then fixed Nettle with the same gaze.

“Take it, and look, you two. And Hap - you too. Tell me who wrote this?”

I took the curling length of paper. It felt strange, like it was made of plants unknown to me. The ink was odd, too, a bright orange colour that I had never seen in my father’s collection. The hand it was written in, though, was easy to identify.

“It was my father,” I said, “I know his writing. I learned to read from it, sometimes.”

“Why would they send this now?” asked Hap, “When he must have written it months ago? The last time he was at Kelsingra was well before the journey to Clerres, as I have heard it told.”

I was too busy reading the contents of the letter. Nettle’s hand was gripping my shoulder hard, and I could tell that she, too, had realised that this was not a letter months old.

“This is a joke,” she said tightly, “and a poor one at that. How can they be so cruel?”

She moved away from me and sat, picking at the hem of her shoulder-wrap. I tried to reach her with the Skill, but she was closed to me. Instead I read the letter again, and found that it was harder to read this time. I did not understand why until Hap reached down and stilled my shaking hands.

“It says,” I started, and then stopped. I was handed a cup of water by Per, who had sidled close and as always seemed to know what I needed. I took a sip and began again. “It is written by someone who claims to be my father. The writing is identical. Even the the little divot at the bottom of the V is the same. It says that he is in Kelsingra. It says that the man most of us know as Lord Golden is with him. It says-”, and here I stopped a second time, unable to continue. Kettricken gently took the letter from me. I let her. I did not want it any more.

“It says that they managed to escape. That the last member of the Four who ruled Clerres is dead, and at Fitz’s hand. It also says that he misses his children, and would be glad to see them all. Those living at Kelsingra have taken both Fitz and Lord Golden in, although he seems to be going by another name there. They say they have space for more of us, if we wish to visit, and to send a bird if we are coming by land, but not to if we are coming by the skill-pillars. There is more, but that is what is relevant.”

She looked up at us all, and I was shocked to see that she was flushed, and her eyes glistened. I had not realised until that moment quite how much my father meant to her. She looked more alive then than she had at any other time I had ever seen her. I felt a rush of good-feeling toward her.

“I know that it may be foolhardy,” she said, “but I will be going to Kelsingra.”

Here she stopped, and she must have known to do so, because the chamber immediately erupted with people talking, saying either that she must not go, or that they too wished to go, or querying how they would go, and any number of other things. For my part I simply went to her and stood by her side. I looked up at her and she placed her warm hand on the crown of my head.

“You, of course, will be going with me,” she said, to me alone, ignoring the hubbub of the rest of the room, “and that is all I really need to say to you. You and Per must go back to bed now - I will deal with how we will get to Kelsingra, and what we will do when we get there. You understand, Bee, that I cannot guarantee that this is a letter from your father, and not some fraudster hoping to trick us for whatever reason. But you and I both have decided that we believe it. We believe that your father lives, and that he is in Kelsingra, safe, with the Fool.”

She took my hand and I felt something small and hard pass from her fingers to mine. I tucked it up into my palm and made a fist. She did not acknowledge the exchange in the slightest, but simply tucked an unruly curl behind my ear and sent Per and I back down to our rooms. Nettle looked a little suspicious as I left, but did not stop me or ask to see what was in my hand.

Alone in my room, I sat on my bed and let my fist uncurl. Within was a folded scrap of paper. Opened, it showed my father’s solid writing again, and under it, a more delicate hand, harder for me to read. The letters were pretty, but slanted. I lit another candle and placed it on my nightstand and squinted.

**“Bee,”** read my father’s words, **“I write now to you alone. I am so sorry to have left you by yourself again. I have felt the way you have felt, thinking someone was dead and then suddenly finding they were not. I could not even skill to you to tell you all was well. All I have are apologies for you, and yet I am reliably informed that apologies are useless, and that I can only strive to do better in future - and so here is my promise that from now on I will always try to be a father you can not only be proud of, but one that you can rely on to take care of you. I miss you. I love you. I hope to see you soon.”**

I set the note down and wiped my eyes, then got up to use the water jug to clean my face. I did not want to ruin the parchment. After some time, I read the last part, that was in a hand I did not recognise - although I could guess to whom it belonged, as it suited him well.

_“I have much to tell you, and no idea where to start. You are so like your father I could cry to see it, and like me also. The parts I do not recognise must come from your mother. I would like to know more about her, as she must have been wonderful, to have had a hand in making you. I daren’t ask Fitz about her. He looks so sad. He misses you terribly, and so do I, although I barely know you. I look forward to meeting you - this time perhaps we will have more than a minute without fearing for our lives.”_

Here there was a little blot of ink as though he had rested the quill and not known what to say. He’d tried to scrape it away, and then maybe given up, or forgotten. The next few lines were cramped to the end of the parchment.

_“Even now I cannot fit everything I want to say to you into words. Your father has already apologised enough for both of us but I, too, want to say sorry. I must have frightened you badly, and moreover you would be right to resent me for being the one who led the Whites to you. I can only hope that I will make a better impression when I see you next. We send this letter with love, and with hope. Be well - come swiftly. Nighteyes says hello.”_

**Author's Note:**

> (*Assassin’s Fate, introduction to Chapter 30, “Barriers and a Black Banner”. Only the part in bold is from the book.)


End file.
